I Think That I Like You
by Usorokoaemo
Summary: A light hearted story in which Erik consents to share his home by the lake with an unexpected feline visitor and the adventures which follow thereafter.
1. Christine

_A/N: For some reason, my first "phiction" attempt ended up as a humor story, not the melodramatic angst story that I've been toying with. Not that the other one isn't going to probably make an appearance at some point. This story focuses on Erik…and a kitty. Okay, so it doesn't really sound all that interesting but I'm not a very interesting person. This Erik is a random mixture of Leroux, ALW, and Mary Poppins. At least, that's what I say to keep you off of my back if I don't stay true to character. Don't take the latter one seriously._

It was a beautiful spring day that broke over Paris. The brilliant sun was rivaled only by another equally brilliant (but in a different way, you know) chorus of bird song. Outside people stopped mid-stride on the streets to enjoy the refreshing feeling of a cool spring breeze. Of course, since Erik was not on the streets, or outside, or even at ground level he quite missed out on all of the fun. There really is no weather five levels under the ground besides "cold" and "damp."

Instead, Erik was angsting. Something he did quite well. He angsted about his poor misbegotten face. He angsted about Christine's betrayal. He even angsted about how the number of hotdogs in a package never matched up with the number of buns, which just went to show how good he was at this considering hotdogs hadn't even been invented yet.

But even Erik had to get tired of sitting around being depressed all the time so, for a change, Erik decided to take a walk along his lake and be depressed. Which, some may argue, is not much of an improvement but you take what you canget, eh? So where were we? Ah yes, Erik. Lake. Depressed.

So as our friendly neighborhood Phantom took a stroll along the shore he contemplated dark things like the eventuality of death and the quality of the environment under most people's sinks. These, of course, were very engrossing thoughts so when he happened upon a rather squishy bit of the stony shoreline that screeched he did what any other red-blooded male would do: he screamed and flailed like a levitating octopus. Squishy bits of shoreline were commonplace in the cellars and so really no matter but squishy bits that made noises when nearly trod upon were definitely worth a fight or flight response.

Erik was a master with his Punjab lasso. He'd Punjabbed loads of people in his time and loads of other things as well depending on how he'd felt that day. But since he'd been caught unaware, and since the object he wanted to Punjab was pretty much a small glinting wet spot on the floor, he missed. This disconcerted him enough to allow the small squishy thing to utter another noise, this time plaintive and weak.

"Mreew."

The squishy wet thing was actually a cat.

_More of a kitten, really._ Erik thought, peering at it with narrowed yellow eyes. It was a small tawny yellow feline with bright blue eyes. He leered over it for a moment but when it became apparent that it was not going to run away screaming nor foppishly leap at him with sword drawn, he decided that it was the best visitor he'd had in ages. His mother hated animals but since he'd had a bit of a fallout with his mother a while back he felt in no way accountable to her if he brought the little creature home with him. So he did.

Bringing it home was the easiest part. Once he got it home, though, he wasn't sure what to do with it. So he laid it on a nest of towels by the fire and resolved to check back on it after he'd banged a few discordant things on his organ. He figured the worst it could do was catch fire and that was most unlikely given how saturated it had been.

For an hour, a day, for…he did not know how long he sat before the great instrument channeling the other world. But in the midst of his frantic musings, long bony fingers flying skillfully over the keys, a single, terrible wrong chord reared its ugly head. He froze, peered in disbelief at his fingers, and then heard it again. Whirling he found himself staring down into the serious face of the now dry kitten, which sat comfortably upon about five keys of his organ. He picked it up roughly by the scruff of its neck and roared straight into its face for about five minutes.

The kitten blinked. Erik blinked. The two of them, fantastically, blinked in unison. Finally, Erik sighed, closed his eyes, and dropped the kitten on the ground where it immediately became hopelessly enamored with his right trouser leg. As irritating as this was, the disfigured man found it hard to dislike a creature that so obviously loved him despite his masked face, his tempers, and his completely healthy misanthropic tendencies. Erik decided he wanted a snack.

The kitten followed him into the kitchen, or what he called his kitchen, where he sought out a chair and then decided he wasn't hungry after all. The kitten, however, felt otherwise and spent its time boring holes into Erik's heart with its wide, hungry, blue eyes. He frowned at it. It continued to stare. He returned its stare but lost that game as well. He hissed fierce words at it. It continued to goggle with the same innocent adoration. Somewhere a tendril of familiarity tickled the back of his mind. Erik suddenly decided to name it Christine. Along with that decision came the sudden inexplicable urge to buy things for her. He also decided to feed her. (A her now because the name implied femininity, which, thankfully, was actually the case.)

"Now, my little dear, you are carnivorous, I am sure." She did not move. Erik found this strangely distressing so he continued talking.

"There are fish in the lake." She still did not move.

"Okay, well, I'm going to go fishing then." And he did.

A few fish later found Erik reclining comfortably with a book with Christine curled just as comfortably in his lap nibbling at his shirt. The kitten Christine, not the real Christine as much as that would have delighted Erik and probably any E/C shippers reading this story. Alas.

Erik hummed lightly to himself, as it is a well-known fact that all phiction Eriks must hum to themselves at least once in every story. Erik's deep and profound (was that redundant?) thoughts were torn away from whatever deep and profound book he was reading by a queer feeling in his stomach. Surprised, he glanced down at Christine who sat purring and kneading gently at his abdominal area. (The cat, once again, but if you want to imagine the human Christine then you're welcome to go ahead. Really. I won't tell anyone.)

His reaction escaped from his lips as a low hiss of exhaled air. Emotions ranging from fear to anger to adoration whirled through him like small insects stuck in a vacuum cleaner before finally settling on quiet amusement.

He timidly extended a single pale finger towards the animal, which was now practically vibrating. He gently drew his finger down her spine and she arched into his hand. She was soft, warm, and pleasantly rumble-y. He smiled.

"I think," He murmured to her, "That I like you."

_A/N: Possibly to be continued. It all depends on how stupid people think this really is because when you get down to it, this story is painfully simple._


	2. 160 reasons

_A/N: I thought I should clear a few things up before I stumble on to the next chapter. As amazing as it seems, I wrote the entire first chapter without having read Phantom by Susan Kay. However, last night I was up all night reading it (having finally obtained it from the library) and I came across Ayesha, Erik's adopted Siamese cat. I was astounded. I had had no idea that an actual cat existed in any of the stories. And here I thought my idea was a novel one. Alas. Even the fact that I chose to call the cat Christine seems a silent salute to Kay's Christine who at one time secretly wished herself to be Erik's cat. I want to say that this is entirely a coincidence. A really quirky coincidence and I wasn't aware of the cat's existence before last night. I wish I could flatter myself by saying that Kay and I share a brain wave. But that is false. And now, the story._

_---_

Erik had rescued another cat once: a beautiful little princess that had worn the pride of Persia about her elegant neck. She was dead now, he was sure, and to all rights, so was he. But for some strange reason this new little lady had destabilized his state of living death. Conceivably because she reminded him of another princess. Or, perhaps, because it was downright impossible to pursue his chosen profession as an irritable psuedo-corpse when she constantly found her way into predicaments that frightened him out of his mind.

_Not quite out of my mind_, he thought to himself with the strange sort of helpless complacency that comes with knowing that you are already quite possibly insane. _I'm already quite far out of that horrendous place. …I suppose_, he continued to himself with a sense of wry satisfaction, _it would be a perversity to say she scares the living daylights out of me. The opposite, in fact. Not to mention this illogical tendency of mine to court truly terrible puns as I converse with myself._

Christine found many different ways to get Erik dirty, sweaty, ruffled, and pretty much down right sexy. You know, if you go for that kind of thing. (This actually applying to both Christines but really only referring to the feline one. I really need to stop butting in like this; you're an intelligent person, you can figure the difference without my incessant breaking in like this.) These ways involved, but were not necessarily limited to: a brief but truly uncomfortable rescue mission if you are a very tall man inside of a chimney, a lovely caper among the branches of the iron tree in his torture room, and an impromptu underground dip in some of his best evening clothes.

But the night (And the word night being used flexibly considering Erik had no idea nor inclination to care whether or not it was night.) that the irrepressible creature managed to find its way into one of the pipes of his organ really topped all of the other dubious adventures altogether.

The scene was, for all the wretchedness of a trapped creature, quite a comical one as the masked man stood with clenched hands addressing his instrument. "I suppose," Erik cried in a mixture of rage and concern, "It would have been acceptable if you hadn't conceived to _wedge_ yourself immovably inside."

The organ made a sad mewling sound.

"Oh, I ought to blow the all of you out of there with one triumphant note."

The organ hissed.

Anger spent, Erik clambered nimbly atop his organ stool to assess the situation. While he could take the instrument apart it seemed an unnecessary waste of time and energy considering in which area of the instrument the cat appeared to be trapped. And, taking full advantage of his awesome height, he peered into one of the smaller pipes.

How in the world the creature had managed to squeeze inside was beyond his reckoning. The hole was scarcely large enough for him to pass a hand through. Fortunately he was also gifted with long delicate hands enough to make any girl swoon. Or in this case, to just grasp at a furry neck scruff. The foolish creature must have crawled in but then gotten stuck turning and wedged itself halfway up the pipe going sideways. Erik's slender fingers were award for their transgression with a sharp nip.

Howling his fury, Erik pulled his hand away. Or tried to except that his hand and arm stayed where they were. With a sudden thrill of dread, Erik realized that in order to go anywhere at all he'd have to part company with his entire left arm, which was now hopelessly lodged inside the pipe along with his feline friend. He also had the decided urge to use the loo. Somewhere above him, impervious to plot holes, Carlotta began to sing.

_This_, thought Erik somewhat ironically,_ must be Hell. No, not a name, a face, a voice. Hell was this frenzied dance of humiliating entrapment accompanied by the auditory rape of a Spanish abomination _

Christine licked his finger in apology.

A considerable period of time later found Erik gasping and massaging his left hand which, after much painful twisting, he had successfully removed from the organ. The poor unfortunate cat was still experiencing what it must be like to live in a tube of toothpaste but Erik couldn't think about her at the moment. He had to make a rush for the lavatory, this rush fueling the desperation that had finally freed his hand at the expense of a great deal of flesh.

Finally relieved, Erik could tackle the problem of the foolish feline, which had grown silent in the past ten minutes. As he considered the way to remove Christine without damaging the organ, a single thought burst uninvited into his mind.

_I must remember to never conceive to have mischievous children._

The careless thought sent a shock of sorrow so keen through him that he sat down heavily on the floor. _I am going mad!_ He thought to himself more as a comfort than anything and spent quite a long time brooding over the pros and cons of being completely raving mad.

He reached his 152nd reason to support madness (Being able to play a lovely game of hide and seek with yourself.) but ended up getting stuck at number 160. He pondered this with all the intensity of an obese child determining the best point of attack on a large piece of chocolate cake. He was tossing about the preliminary outline for what would later prove to be the world's first reality television show when something rubbed along his leg.

He flailed in an attempt to sit up, being that his spine had somehow found its way to the floor where the two had seemingly been conversing about trading characteristics for a long time now because his back was now as stiff as the cold stone floor. For a moment his bewildered mind considered perusing the dark depths of aging and reasons not to age but the sudden realization that his cat was _still_ stuck in a rather confined and probably uncomfortable way struck him.

"Dear God!" He cried, and flailed even more until the windmill of his hands somehow defied gravity enough to pull him to his feet. The thing that had rubbed along his leg disturbing his thoughts the first time did so again. He glanced down and then his jaw found its way back to the floor.

There, at his feet, sat the tiny ruffled form of Christine. She gazed at him with all the reproach a tiny mussed up kitten could muster-quite a lot, in fact- and then stalked away into the kitchen. Erik stood quite still, his mind working desperately on the known laws of physics to no avail. Finally, he closed his eyes and sank down to the floor again. The fact that he'd found his 160th reason to be completely insane (Being able to completely ignore the laws of physics and the occasional lack of them) was of little consolation.


	3. There is a Logical Explanation

_A/N: And onward we heedlessly plow. Just in case you're wondering, the reason I decided to use a kitten is because Erik, especially Kay Erik, has a deep affection for animals. The kitten is female because, first, I wanted to make Christine jokes, and second, because Erik (mostly Kay Erik) feels that females are especially vulnerable. He has a special place in his heart for vulnerable, innocent creatures. Thus, I have created a character that has an immense amount of leeway as far as annoying Erik. She could probably get away with nearly anything. :)_

_I'm afraid I'm deviating a lot from Erik's character. I'll try to stop doing this but because this is a humor fiction, even a parody of Erik, I'll have to make him a little silly. It would be no fun if he were rational the entire time. :)_

_Thanks to all of my reviewers out there. I honestly didn't think anyone would like this fic so much. Erik inspired the birth. You guys continue the growth. _

_---_

Christine had begun to hunt. While this led to a significant decrease in the amount of small furry things making their homes in Erik's lair, it also inevitably led to small furry things making their graves in rather unexpected places. Like his coffin, for instance. Erik found he rather preferred them alive and under his coffin instead of dead and sleeping with him.

He'd had multiple one-sided conversations with the little creature that begun something like, "Christine, dearest, you flatter me so, but…"  
Only to trail off in a sort of despairing adoration as she turned her huge empty eyes at him and the ridiculousness of the situation overwhelmed him. It was like talking to, well, he wasn't sure. Something charming but with ignorance to such shocking depths that it practically shone out of those big beautiful eyes.  
"Rather like a certain tragically obtuse Vicomte. Though you are by far much more aesthetically pleasing," he paused. "Well, to me at least." The Phantom concluded sadly. Christine gave him a kitty-kiss on his hand.

As time went on, however, Erik's rock solid fortitude began to develop tiny fissures. The day he reached for a bar of soap and brought it to his face only to realize that soap shouldn't stare with two beady eyes was the day the wall of rock finally came tumbling down. It began, almost like a scale, with a soft growl in the back of his throat that steadily crescendoed higher and higher into a full-throated roar from deep within his diaphragm.

Tearing from the bath he blew like a rampaging rhino into the…well, he ran into a lot of things including a wall he hadn't even realized he had. _It is done up with dreadful wallpaper._ He thought to himself as he bounced off. _I must remember to remedy that later._

But eventually he ended up next to a fireplace. Next to this fireplace, as logically goes with story telling, was curled Christine. She regarded him with a serenity of remarkable proportions considering that he'd entered backwards and had reached a pitch of such height that the real actual soprano Christine would have been put to shame. Somewhere above them a mirror shattered into Carlotta's face causing much hilarity but, unfortunately, no lasting damage.

Erik would have yelled something vague about assuming felines and their unwelcome attentions but he'd used up all of his air. So he flailed about instead; another skill of many he had perfected over time. Perhaps not quite as useful as ventriloquism but when employed with a long black cape, was a very impressive spectacle indeed.

Christine, having used up her quota of quiet composure for the day, arched her back and hissed. Finding this to have no effect what-so-ever on the frightening figure that flapped (alliteration is a useful tool, children) at her like a giant crazed bat, she switched, like her namesake, into a flight mode. Only, the real Christine had never had the option of somehow finding her way onto the ceiling to cling perilously upside-down above her maestro's head. Cat-Christine, however, did seem to have this option. The sight of her gravity defying feat (puns can also be useful) shocked Erik enough for _his_ second mode of action to kick in: remorse.

Like in another time before with another Christine Erik was suddenly consumed by guilt and sorrow. Ashamed by his sudden violent lack of constitution, he ceased his flailing and beseeched the poor creature above him, which quivered with what he supposed was either fear or anger. He rather hoped for the first.

Pleading failed. Temptation by saucer of milk failed. And an attempt involving a frantic clawing leap failed spectacularly when it ended with a 6 foot plus man rocketing himself headfirst into his coffin. (And by coffin I mean literally, not figuratively. He did not kill himself and thus end up in a coffin but actually ended up jumping quite alive into the coffin that served as his bed.)

Weary and resigned, Erik sat down under Christine with his arms open to her and began to sing. There is no doubt that the beauty of his voice would have compelled the little feline to relinquish her grip upon his ceiling had he not been very suddenly and very embarrassingly interrupted.

"Ahem." The word was coughed in the sort of cough one uses when they want to express their presence before the person they are watching does something that would embarrass both parties even further. And no doubt, the situation was embarrassing.

Erik's song came to a grinding halt much like a series of gears would if you threw a wrench in. A series of gears lying in a bed of silken roses and dipped in honey. Erik's voice, no matter in what situation, always managed to taste sweet going down.

He became suddenly aware that here he was, standing utterly naked in the middle of his bedroom doing what looked to be his level best at seducing his ceiling. This would have been okay if he had been alone but he wasn't alone because a very dark, very embarrassed man was standing in his doorway, jade eyes wide in astonishment. The fact that he had his mask would have been a consolation except that it had somehow ended up on his right hand where it was of no use at all. Erik _liked_ his hands. Christine had _liked_ his hands, heck, Erik was ready to bet that even _Raoul_ had liked his hands. No, the mask was definitely of no use _there._

"Well…" Said Nadir who, of course, was the dark man with jade eyes. "Well…" He said again.

Erik waited for him to go on but he didn't.

"There is a logical explanation-," sighed the harassed Phantom with amazing coolness. And he would have gone on had Christine not chosen that particular moment to drop onto his head.

Ten minutes and one cup of tea later found Nadir sitting comfortably across from Erik who sat gripping the table across from him.

"Why on earth are you so tense?" Asked the Persian.

"There is a particular quality to you that makes me wince." Replied the other testily before going on. "Because she gouged my face, you idiot."

"Considering your peculiar habit of covering your face, sure, I should have been able to determine it from the unblemished mask."

"That cat…"

"Will be the death of you." Finished Nadir for him.

The other man nodded, leaning back and touching his mask.

"I think she's good for you."

"Vegetables are good for me too. That doesn't mean I enjoy them."

"You enjoy vegetables just as well as the next man."

"But vegetables is not the point we are discussing."

Fortunately, further painfully out of character conversation was put to an end by Christine's sudden appearance at Nadir's feet. She regarded him thoughtfully for a moment, nudged gently at his leg, and then promptly tore a chunk of his flesh out with her tiny razor sharp teeth.

"Dear Allah!" The man cried, reeling back to fall from his chair and hit the floor.

Initially Erik said nothing and maintained a grim sort of silence that seemed to say, "I told you so." But after a moment, he realized that a.) Nadir was as close to a friend as he had and far more importantly, b.) The blood was really messing up his rug.

"Felines have never been your expertise." He commented, crouching to examine the wound. _Impressive_, He thought to himself privately. _The length and breadth is quite unusual for a domestic feline of her age._

"She has an awfully big mouth for a kitten." Said Nadir simply. Erik silently agreed, long fingers probing gently at the tear in Nadir's pants.

"Well," he sighed at length, "The wound is definitely of a mortal nature. You know how dangerous these little kittens can be. You can borrow my coffin if you'd like."

The other man covered his eyes with a hand. "No thank you. But I'd say yes to another cup of tea."

And that's how Nadir met Christine. The cat, that is.

_A/N: So I've just proven that I can't play Erik worth beans. As far as dialogue goes…well, we'll just hope I won't have to resort too much of it later. I added it in this chapter for a change of pace. Now I know I probably shouldn't do that again._

_I'm leaving for China soon so my fanfiction will be on hold for a while. And then, two days after I return, I'm leaving to New York to see Phantom so, again, on hold. I'll try to start my serious Phantom fic soon but I can't make any guarantees_

_And I'm reading all of your reviews: never fear! _


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